He took what El-Deeb described as "a clear and straight shortcut to the social and political function of a writer".
In it, he posed a question that was both rhetorical and piercingly immediate: "What is the function, the possibilities, of a writer living under this rumbling volcano?" The volcano was Brink's apartheid homeland, and the proximate cause of the rumbling was a recent, sudden upsurge in black protest and government repression.
I was asked by Cameron Mackintosh to write about Alan – "a few hundred words, dear" – when I directed a musical based on Alan's film script for A Private Function … The test of a writer's fame is the extent to which their work becomes part of the currency of everyday language.
We established a list of targetable EpRs based on the following inclusion criteria: 1) being involved either in DNA methylation, histone acetylation, or histone methylation and 2) function as a writer, eraser, or reader of the epigenetic code.
His most ambitious work was "The Engineer of Human Souls" (1977), the title a deadpan reference to Stalin's definition of a writer's true function.
At the other extreme, mountaineer Joe Simpson can function as a writer only on the condition that he remain roped to the cliff face of personal experience.
He felt he couldn't function as a writer, that he couldn't be honest as a writer," said Sundaram.
What he or she embodies for me is a version of the writer minus all the bullshit, all the camouflage or obfuscation – embodies, that is, the function of the writer stripped down to its bare structural essentials.
